In The Age of the Strongman, the journalist Gideon Rachman explores how populist and authoritarian leaders have become a central feature of global politics. Since Vladimir Putin took power in Russia at the beginning of the new millennium, self-styled strongmen have emerged across the globe, from Trump and Bolsonaro to Orbán, Xi and Modi. Rachman tells Tom Sutcliffe how these leaders have taken power and the challenge they pose to liberal democracy. Judy Dempsey is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe and editor in chief of the Strategic Europe blog. She explains how Viktor Orbán has tightened his grip on power in Hungary, while the EU has dragged its heels. And how Putin’s war in Ukraine has not only exacerbated pre-existing global divisions but divided Europe as well. History is littered with powerful leaders, and Christopher de Bellaigue, tells of the rise of one of the most feared – Suleyman the Magnificent. In The Lion House: The Coming of a King the 16th century Ottoman Sultan dominates the lives of those from Baghdad to the walls of Vienna.Producer: Katy Hickman

The new novel, Glory, by prize winning writing NoViolet Bulawayo is a postcolonial tale of power and tyranny – an African Animal Farm. It’s set in the fictional Jidada, that resembles Zimbabwe during the overthrow of Robert Mugabe, and is populated by a vivid cast of animals – from the vicious dog-soldiers to the powerful Old Horse leader himself. She tells Adam Rutherford how her chorus of animal voices help reveal the human world more clearly. The journalist Dipo Faloyin wants to push against harmful stereotypes of modern Africa. In his latest book, Africa Is Not A Country, he argues that a continent of over 1.4 billion people, 54 countries and more than 2,000 languages has been reduced to a simplistic story. He looks at how politics, culture and community have emerged in different ways across Africa.Julia Gallagher is Professor of African Politics at SOAS, University of London. Her research explores the architecture of state buildings in different African countries – from the re-purposed colonial structures to the new palatial palaces of post-independence – and how citizens respond to them. Also as the African Union celebrates twenty years since it was founded – housed in a new compound built by the Chinese in Addis Ababa – she looks at the position of the AU in the 21st century. Producer: Katy HickmanImage: photograph of NoViolet Bulawayo - copyright Nye' Lyn Tho

"Stand still, and I will read to thee / A lecture, love, in love's philosophy." John Donne is one of the greatest love poets in the history of the English language. In a new biography, Super-Infinite, Katherine Rundell reveals the many transformations in his life – from scholar to sea adventurer to priest. She also tells Kirsty Wark of his extraordinary ability to transform language into something new. Copies of his Metaphysical Poems will be well-thumbed by students around the country. But what of the power of books in general? In Portable Magic: A History of Books and their Readers, Emma Smith presents an iconoclastic and revisionist story of our love affair with books. Megan Walsh meanwhile has been looking at contemporary Chinese literature. The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why it Matters, reveals the huge appetite for books and the wonderful diversity of Chinese writing – from migrant-worker poetry movements and homoerotic romances to surreal stories and sci-fi.Producer: Katy Hickman

The picture of a lone figure, plastic bags in hand, standing in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square in China in 1989 has become an iconic image of resistance to overpowering might. As Russian tanks have crossed into Ukraine, individuals have put themselves in similar positions to halt the advance. But what about in Russia itself. Arkady Ostrovksy is Russia and eastern Europe editor for The Economist. He tells Tom Sutcliffe about the thousands who have been arrested protesting against the war, and President Putin’s measures to quash any dissent. In Resistance: The Underground War in Europe, 1939-45, Halik Kochanski has written a sweeping history of occupation and resistance. She uncovers extraordinary tales of ordinary people who carried out exceptional acts of defiance against Nazi Germany. But she also challenges the heroic myths that surround underground resistance, and asks painful questions about why people didn’t resist, and equally what was actually achieved by those that did. Nathan Law was one of the student leaders whose week-long class boycott against China’s increasing interference in Hong Kong led to the 79-day Umbrella Movement protest in 2014. In Freedom: How We Lose It And How We Fight Back he argues for the importance of standing up to authoritarianism around the world, despite the dangers. He left Hong Kong as the Chinese government enacted wide-ranging security laws, and has since been granted political asylum in Britain.Producer: Katy HickmanImage: People participate in a Unity March to show solidarity and patriotic spirit over the escalating tensions with Russia on February 12, 2022 in Kiev, Ukraine.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine images of war in Europe dominate the news, and questions rage about the political failure to both prevent and end the atrocities. Amol Rajan discusses the political forces that have allowed the West to flourish and the cracks that are beginning to widen. Developed in the wake of European wars of religion and nationalism, Liberalism was designed as a system to govern diverse societies, with a strong emphasis on the rights of individuals, equality and the rule of law. In Liberalism and Its Discontents Francis Fukuyama argues for a return to its classical form but shows how attacks from both the left and right have left it in a state of crisis.Europe’s dependence on Russian oil is central to Helen Thompson’s book, Disorder: Hard Times in the 21st Century. She looks back at the historical origins of today’s overlapping geopolitical, economic and political failures.Shifts in the global balance of power in the 19th century between Old Europe and the New World of American Imperialism are at the heart of Edward Shawcross’s extraordinary tale. He describes the ignoble end of a Habsburg Archduke, aided by Napoleon III, who crossed the world to become The Last Emperor of Mexico.Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: Francis Fukuyama – © Djurdja Padejski

In May Wales will hold local elections to elect members of all twenty-two local authorities. Richard Wyn Jones, professor of Welsh politics, examines the issues facing the country. He tells Helen Lewis how nationalism plays an important role in politics in Wales, but that its national identity is a complex mix of Welsh, English and British. What does it meant to be Welsh today? And what of the future of Wales? These are the questions posed in a series of essays, Welsh [Plural]. The poet Hanan Issa is one of the co-editors, and is looking to get beyond the stereotype images of castles, coal and choirs, and understand the full rich diversity of Welsh identities.The historian Dr Marion Loeffler explores how pivotal works of art and literature have helped shape Wales. In a landmark BBC series, Art That Made Us (on BBC2 in April) she looks back to the 7th century poem Y Gododdin and the painter Penry Williams’ depiction of Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night, 1825. Wales’s industrial landscape is at the centre of Richard King’s oral history, Brittle With Relics, which focuses on the huge changes that took place during the second half of the 20th century. The story of the effects of deindustrialisation, loss of employment and social cohesion, as well as the fight for a voice, language and identity, is told through the people who lived through it.Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: BBC ClearStory - Artist and Performer Sean Parry with a byddar drum

Humans have been fascinated with birdlife since the first cave drawings 12,000 years ago. In Birds and Us, Tim Birkhead explores how birds have captured our imaginations and inspired both art and science. He looks back to the mummified ibises of Ancient Egypt and the Victorian obsessions with egg collecting, to today’s bustling guillemot colonies on the Faroe Islands and the fight to save endangered species. Around 1820 John James Audubon declared his intention to paint every bird species in North America. The result was the hugely ambitious Birds of America featuring 435 life-size, hand-coloured prints. The National Museum of Scotland is currently exhibiting several of his original unbound prints, and the curator Mark Glancy tells the story of this controversial figure who shot thousands of birds in his pursuit of the perfect pose and specimen, but also had a unique eye for their beauty. Alison Richard has spent five decades investigating one of the most extraordinarily diverse places on earth – Madagascar. She recreates the island of the past with its towering flightless Elephant birds and giant tortoises. Her latest book, The Sloth Lemur’s Song captures the magic and mystery of Madagascar today, but also serves as a warning at what could lie ahead for its unique wildlife.Producer: Katy HickmanImage Credit: Detail from a print depicting Carolina Pigeons or Turtle Doves from Birds of America by John James Audubon © National Museums Scotland.jpg

New York, 1984: the iconic artist Andy Warhol meets the rising star Jean-Michel Basquiat. Their relationship as they work together on a landmark exhibition is at the heart of the world premiere of Anthony McCarten’s new drama, The Collaboration, at the Young Vic theatre. The director Kwame Kwei-Armah tells Kirsty Wark how the drama pulls apart the creative, racial and sexual tensions between the two, and explores artistic reputations and rivalries. The artist Louise Bourgeois was already in her 70s in the 1980s and slowly getting the attention she deserved. An exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London focuses on the decades that followed as she had a late burst of creativity using fabric and textiles. The curator of Woven Child Ralph Rugoff explains how the artist began to incorporate clothes from all stages of her life into her art, mining themes of personal trauma, memory, identity and reparation.The Somali-British poet Warsan Shire has been hailed as the voice of a generation, who has collaborated with the superstar Beyoncé. Her debut collection, Bless The Daughter: Raised By A Voice In Her Head is full of sounds and smells, exploring the lives of refugees and the relationship between mothers and daughters. While she is celebrated as an exciting poet of our time, Shire says she looks to Somalia’s literary heritage for inspiration. Producer: Katy HickmanPhoto credit: Jeremy Pope and Paul Bettany in 'Collaboration' (c) Marc Brenner. Concept and design by Émilie Chen.

The historian Peter Hennessy asks whether post-Covid Britain needs to set out a new social contract, comparable to the Beveridge report after WWII. In A Duty of Care, he looks back to the foundations of the modern welfare state and the ‘five giants’ against which society had to battle – want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. He tells Helen Lewis that after the effects of the pandemic, it’s time to be ambitious and try and work together to tackle today’s comparable giants. In a damning report commissioned by the NHS Race and Health Observatory earlier this month, it was revealed that minority ethnic patients suffered overwhelming inequalities. If a new Beveridge is to be conceived diversity will need to be at its heart, but the anthropologist Farhan Samanani is concerned that increasingly ‘difference’ is being seen as a threat to societal cohesion. He has undertaken field research in the north London area of Kilburn – one of the most diverse in the UK. In How To Live With Each Other he explores the capacity of people to connect across divides and cultivate common ground.While post-war governments looked to rebuild the country’s infrastructure and create a new welfare state in the aftermath of the trauma of war, the arts and education in Britain were also viewed as vital to the economy and to reuniting the nation. Jane Alison is the curator of the Barbican’s new exhibition, Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain, 1945–1965 (opening on 3rd March). She says that artists at the time – both home grown and refugees – sought to find meaning and purpose in a changed world. And she argues that artists today are asking similar probing questions about what kind of society we want and need. Producer: Katy HickmanImage credit: Eva Frankfurther, West Indian Waitresses, c.1955 Ben Uri Collection, presented by the artist’s sister, Beate Planskoy, 2015,© The Estate of Eva Frankfurther, photograph by Justin P (from the exhibition, 'Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-1965' Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK)

The Sassoons were one of the great commercial dynasties of the 19th century: ‘the Rothschilds of the East’. In Global Merchants the historian Joseph Sassoon charts how his ancestors – Jewish refugee exiles from Ottoman Baghdad – built a vast enterprise of trade and influence across the world. He tells Tom Sutcliffe how their meteoric rise and ultimate fall mirrored the British imperial project.At the height of their ambition the Sassoons led an extravagant lifestyle, but never quite overcame their origins to be accepted in upper class society in the West. Money, power, class and caste are at the centre of Pankaj Mishra’s new novel, Run and Hide. The heroes of his story are lower class Indians determined to succeed – at a time when success is counted in private jets and lavish parties, and failure leads to a global financial scandal.The Head of Economics at the Open University, Professor Susan Newman, provided expert advice for the recent BBC 2 series, The Decade the Rich Won: Stories of power and influence, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. In her studies she’s interested in the question of how wealth is accumulated today, the impact of globalisation on national decision-making, and growing inequality. Producer: Katy Hickman